


Redemption

by Nietoperz



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), Red Dead Redemption 2
Genre: Afterlife, Death, End of game spoilers, Last Moments, Sad, Short, Spoilers, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26496727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nietoperz/pseuds/Nietoperz
Summary: The last moments of a man who gave everything and got back misery and pain.
Kudos: 14





	Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to get this thing off my mind. It has been sitting in my drafts for a while and now that I am overall better I can finally present this to you all.  
> Sorry for any errors, sometimes my dumb Italian brain does not work properly

That sunrise is the last thing he sees. While the pain finally sets aside and his limbs become heavy, Arthur has the opportunity to see the last beautiful thing in his life. His dying eyes focus on the rising sun, drinking its beauty; he feels at peace. Despite his imminent death, all he can feel is gratitude: for his life, the friends he made along the way, his loved ones, the ones he lost and the ones he found again. 

It would be stupid to say that he has no regrets, it would be stupid to say that everything went perfectly over the years. He did many horrible things during the years: he robbed, he killed, he lied, everywhere he went he left only misery and destruction.

Now…

Nothing really matters now. Pain, fatigue, disappointments, love, hate, nothing matters anymore in front of this last show offered by nature. His battered skin being caressed by the first rays of the sun is one of the last things he can feel. 

Dutch, Hosea, John, Mary, Eliza, Isaac, all the people who were killed in front of his eyes and who were his family; their faces begin to fade into his memories, they vanish into the oblivion that is wrapping around his conscience. 

After so much pain and suffering, both endured and inflicted, he feels free. Free of the burden of life, a life spent dispensing misery and anguish and death, a life from which he has so desperately sought redemption. And for as much as he tried, that bitch has always come back to bite him in the ass, to make him pay. He tried so hard to be a better person... only to see his every attempt thrown to the wind by following Dutch and his crazy ideas, because Dutch has always had a plan and often that plan consisted in total chaos, in things that never went right, in people who died in vain. It was probably all part of Dutch’s plan anyway. That day, his plan was to abandon his favorite son, leave him to die alone, like a dog, on top of a mountain.

Arthur no longer feels the cold, he no longer feels pain. There’s just the sky, the warmth on his skin, the sunrays kissing the earth like a mother kisses his newborn child. 

He barely notices the tears wetting his cheeks. He feels relieved. After all, this is the end he deserves: alone, as he has always been. 

The only consolation? John is safe. The brother he didn't want, but apparently the universe has a different idea about it, is safe. John was the person who turned out to be the only one worthy of survival, worthy of moving forward. Saving him -and Abigail and Jack- has been the last gesture of a desperate man who knows he won’t see the next day, the last attempt at redemption of a broken soul. 

Dawn is the last thing his tired eyes see before closing for the last time. The last snapshot of a world that turned out to be as cruel as it was wonderful and breathtaking. 

It would be poetic to say that he thought of his true love before passing away, that his last fragment of consciousness reached his son Isaac, but it would be a lie. 

Arthur drifts off for the last time with his last thought running west, far away, elusive, free. 

\---

_ "Hosea, is that you?" _

_ "It's nice to see you again, my boy" _

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can yell at me for this on tumblr @laratavoloira and just so you know, I am not sorry. I suffered through this and you all should suffer with me.


End file.
